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Egypt’s first insurtech hackathon
28 November to 1 December 2019
American University in Cairo
Contents
1. Executive summary .................................................................................................................... 1
2. Background, rationale and objectives ..................................................................................... 2
3. Challenge framework ................................................................................................................. 4
4. Hackathon overview .................................................................................................................. 8
5. Participant outline ................................................................................................................... 11
6. Solution details ........................................................................................................................ 13
First place: Hood .................................................................................................................... 14
Second place: MerQ, ............................................................................................................ 14
Third place: Amanleek .......................................................................................................... 15
7. Key learning outcomes ........................................................................................................... 16
7.1 Overall objectives ............................................................................................................ 16
7.2 Skills development and mentorship ............................................................................. 17
7.3 Partnership and collaboration ....................................................................................... 17
7.4 Event feedback ................................................................................................................ 18
7.5 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 19
8. Annexure .................................................................................................................................. 20
1. Executive summary
The Insur;Hack is the first event of the InsurTech Egypt platform1 and the country’s first
hackathon dedicated solely to insurtech. The event was a partnership between the
Promotion of Access to Financial Services for Small and Medium Enterprises (PAFSMA) at
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) Egypt, the Financial
Regulatory Authority (FRA) of Egypt, the Insurance Federation of Egypt, the American
University in Cairo (AUC) Venture Lab, Rainmaking Innovation, and insight2impact
(insight2impact facility).
The Insur;Hack ran at the AUC from 28 November to 1 December 2019. The event aimed to
provide competing teams with sector-specific training and mentorship, as well as the
chance to win financial and physical resources that enable them to ideate, prototype and
build digital products that can help disrupt the Egyptian insurance industry. Twenty-four
(24) teams participated in the four-day event, and 12 teams pitched their solutions –
addressing four key challenges to the insurance industry – on the final day, which was
attended by representatives from industry, regulators, the start-up community, the
development sector and the media.
The top three pitches were:
• Hood (using sensor data on vehicle health and driving behaviour for improved risk
management)
• MerQ (a provider of chatbots focusing on financial services)
• Amanleek (an online comparison and sales portal for insurance)
The winners received cash prizes of EGP45,000, EGP36,000 and EGP29,000 respectively
and fast-tracked placement into the Startupbootcamp and AUC Venture Lab accelerators.
The first place winners (Hood) also received a study tour, organised by GIZ, to insurtech
companies in Germany.
Surveys conducted among participants throughout the competition highlight that the
Insur;Hack succeeded in its overall aims of providing training, encouraging the design of
relevant insurtech solutions, and providing partnership and mentorship opportunities.
Notably, the event’s success can be attributed to its holistic approach, which combined
training to both insurtechs and incumbent insurers, and incorporated a focus on various
skills, ranging from technical and entrepreneurial to soft skills.
1 The InsurTech Egypt platform was launched to connect start-ups and entrepreneurs with insurance companies and
regulators under one umbrella to ideate, design and address the insurance industry’s main challenges.
Box 1: What is a hackathon?
A competition during which computer programmers and other tech-savvy individuals
collaborate intensively to innovate and design solutions to a problem using technology.
Typically lasting several days, the goal of a hackathon is to develop usable prototypes
that offer innovation through novel product design or by improving existing
products/services. Each team then presents their solution to a panel of judges who
evaluate the product innovation. Prizes are awarded to the team that develops the best
solution to an industry problem.
2. Background, rationale and objectives
According to the FRA of Egypt, the insurance industry represents close to 1% of Egypt’s
GDP2 and is considered one of the most important drivers of economic growth in Egypt.
Despite the economic growth and the high rate of investment, the insurance industry is
facing a number of persistent challenges.
The Insur;Hack (Egypt’s first hackathon focusing specifically on insurtech) was designed to
provide competing teams with sector-specific training and mentorship, as well as the
chance to win financial and physical resources that enable them to ideate, prototype and
build digital products that can help to disrupt the insurance industry. Moreover, the
hackathon deliberately provided for ecosystem engagements between incumbent insurers,
insurtech teams, entrepreneurship support providers and the FRA. These engagements and
networking opportunities ensured that the innovations designed were contextually relevant
to the market, that the required partnerships were facilitated to take innovations to market
and that regulatory hurdles for doing so could be productively discussed and addressed.
Under the theme “Pioneering Innovation in Egypt’s Insurance Sector”, the hackathon
sought to address the Egyptian insurance sector’s main barriers to inclusive insurance..
These were identified through industry engagement and research conducted by
insight2impact.
The insight2impact facility is a public resource that promotes the use of data by private-
sector and public-sector actors to advance financial inclusion through evidence-based and
data-driven policies and product design. insight2impact has been driving innovation
initiatives across Africa since its inception in 2015. Through the pan-African DataHack4FI
Innovation Competition, as well as numerous smaller Hackathons, insight2impact supports
the identification and development of new product innovations that advance financial and
economic inclusion on the continent.
The Insur;Hack was held at the AUC from 28 November to 1 December 2019. The four-day
hackathon consisted of two tracks: one targeted at the participating tech innovators and
insurtechs, and one targeted at the incumbent insurers in attendance. The competing tech
innovators participated in a curriculum of intensive training and mentorship covering a
variety of topics, including design thinking, agile prototyping and insurance infrastructure.
The training was delivered by a diverse set of facilitators from the entrepreneurship support
space (AUC Venture Lab and Rainmaking Innovation), the insurance industry (Gulf
Insurance Group Egypt, Sarwa Insurance and AXA Egypt), and the development sector
(insight2impact and GIZ Egypt). Parallel to this, the incumbent insurers participated in a
two-day workshop on designing insurance products for MSMEs, which GIZ Egypt delivered.
This training introduced the incumbents to new ways of approaching product design and
unfamiliar target markets and incorporated a competition element where teams from the
insurers pitched their ideas for MSME insurance products to a panel of judges. This
fostered an innovative mindset among the incumbents, and the industry-specific training for
the insurtechs enabled participating teams to ideate and design solutions that could
contribute to a more inclusive and tech-enabled insurance sector in Egypt. Representatives
from eight insurance providers attended and contributed to the Insur;Hack: Allianz Egypt,
2 FRA statement (Available at: http://www.fra.gov.eg/content/efsa_en/eisa_pages_en/main_eisa_page_en.htm)
American International Group (AIG), AXA, Gulf Insurance Group (GIG), Misr Insurance
Company, Orient Takaful Insurance Company, and Sarwa Insurance Company.
The Insur;Hack set out to achieve the following key objectives:
• To provide a platform that promotes collaboration among young Egyptian innovators,
mentors, innovation and insurance industry experts
• To provide capacity-building and mentorship to the competing teams, relevant to the
development and scaling of products and businesses
• To catalyse the design and development of innovative technological solutions that solve
key challenges faced by Egypt’s insurance industry
• To showcase emerging innovations to an audience of key industry stakeholders and
other interested parties
3. Challenge framework
During the hackathon, the participating teams competed under a challenge framework
developed in collaboration with the insurance industry and financial inclusion experts. The
identified challenges were developed based on a number of focus groups conducted with
key industry stakeholders, hosted by GIZ Egypt, as well as the most prevalent challenges for
providers as identified by a multi-country review of inclusive insurance (see Box 2).
3 Esser et al (2019), “Insurtech for development: Emerging market trends. An update”, Cenfri. (Available at:
https://cenfri.org/databases/insurtech-tracker/)
Box 2: Inclusive insurance provider challenges3
• Lack of information on consumers: Low-income consumers engage less often with the
formal sector than traditional, higher-income insurance consumers. Coupled with lower official
documentation ownership and lower formal employment observed in the low-income space,
this affects the amount and quality of consumer data that insurers can obtain. Reliable
information on asset ownership, health and claims behaviour is vital for adequate risk profiling,
product design, sales, servicing, payments collection and claims assessment.
• Lack of access to consumers: Traditional insurance generally relies on branches, brokers,
agent networks and aggregators such as employers for insurance distribution. Physical
touchpoints and aggregators are largely concentrated in urban areas or areas with many high-
income individuals or commercial enterprises. The reality, however, is that a high proportion of
the microinsurance target market is unbanked (over two billion adults worldwide), self- or
informally employed, and/or engaged in farming and live in rural areas. This makes it difficult to
reach this target market to sell policies, provide post-sale service, collect premiums and pay
out claims.
• Different and new consumer needs: Products designed and priced for mainstream
insurance markets often do not meet the specific needs of low-income consumers. Designing
products and processes to meet these needs requires a tailored approach, informed by target
market realities. This includes consideration of the risk events that will be most appropriate to
cover (i.e. cover for assets not traditionally covered by insurance, such as individual livestock),
the manner and timing of premium collection (e.g. seasonal versus monthly) and what
documentation is needed to verify claims.
• Consumers inexperienced with formal financial services: Low-income consumers often
have lower literacy levels and are generally less familiar with the formal insurance concept.
This poses a challenge at multiple interaction points along the product lifecycle, given that the
information provided to the consumer needs to be adequately packaged.
• Constrained business models: Low-income consumers have, by definition, limited incomes
and therefore struggle to afford expensive insurance premiums. This is often compounded by
the unpredictability of this target market’s income streams. Insurance premiums, therefore,
need to be adequately priced to be affordable and attractive to this consumer segment. A low-
premium environment constrains business models for insurers, requiring low costs and high
volumes for the business case to be viable. The traditional approach to insurance delivery,
however, involves costly infrastructure (both front- and backend).
The Insur;Hack participants focused their creativity and technical expertise on addressing
one of four key challenges:
Challenge #1: Developing data analysis and assessment tools for insurance companies
The problem: Insurance providers struggle to access, collect, analyse and interpret data
about their markets and customers.
Data has always been crucial to insurance provision, as data-driven risk models are the very
basis of policies and related premiums. With increasing availability of data, and with
increasingly powerful data analysis methods, the opportunities for insurance providers to
better design and distribute their products are expanding rapidly. These opportunities are
particularly striking when it comes to the low-income segments, but these opportunities are
currently not sufficiently utilised.
One of the most common challenges as communicated by Egyptian insurance providers to
GIZ is that of accessing, collecting, storing, analysing and interpreting data. This is
supported by insight2impact’s 2018 findings, where 67% of insurance providers in six
African countries were facing data-related challenges (i.e. data not being accessible,
missing data, poor data quality or the most recent data not being available) and 41% had
staff-related challenges (e.g. skill shortages and the lack of dedicated data staff)4.
This challenge requires the development of a data and analytics tool that allows for
insurance providers to either:
• Access and interpret a new data type that increases their ability to design and distribute
a product to customers;
OR
• Better interpret their existing internal data in a way that increases their ability to service
their customers
Challenge #2: Transforming the insurance agent
The problem: Insurance distribution via agents and brokers doesn’t reach sufficient mass
market scale.
One of the most common challenges experienced by insurance providers in Egypt is that of
distribution to their clients. Distribution of insurance in developing markets is notoriously
difficult. Target markets are geographically dispersed outside of urban areas and margins in
inclusive insurance are low, thus constraining the business model.
Insurance distribution in Egypt is mostly done directly by insurance companies or through
intermediaries such as brokers (who have relationships with multiple insurance companies)
and agents (who work only with one insurance provider). According to the 2016 Egyptian
Financial Supervisory Authority (EFSA) National Strategy for the Expansion of
4 De Villiers & Chetty (2018), “Survey: Data in FSP decision-making. Findings from six African countries”, insight2impact
(Available at https://i2ifacility.org/insights/articles/do-fsps-in-africa-use-data-to-drive-their-decisions?entity=news&offset=5)
Microinsurance in Egypt, distribution of microinsurance happens entirely through
microfinance institutions.5
However, the insurance intermediary model suffers from a number of challenges that
prohibit it from reaching sufficient scale in the mass market. These challenges include the
incentive structure (i.e. commission structure incentivising the intermediaries to focus on a
small number of large customers only, disregarding smaller – yet arguably more valuable to
customers – retail products), challenges with reaching customers in low-network or more
rural areas, and challenges related to consumers’ distrust of insurance companies and their
intermediaries.
This challenge requires a digital solution to improve the functioning of insurance
agents, encouraging and enabling them to more successfully reach the mass market.
Challenge #3: Reaching the low-income insurance segment
The problem: There is low take-up of insurance products among the low-income customer
segment.
Low-income customer segments are notoriously difficult to reach with insurance products.
This means that this target market, despite experiencing regular and severe shocks, uses
other (often sub-optimal) coping mechanisms in Egypt6. In addition to the supply-side
challenges faced by insurance providers in serving this market (see Box 2), common
reasons for low-income customers not being sufficiently interested in the insurance
products on offer include:
• Lack of perceived value of insurance products on offer (This includes the fact that
insurance products are too expensive, as well as the fact that the risk events they insure
aren’t perceived as sufficiently relevant.)
• Lack of trust in insurance companies
• Lack of awareness of insurance products and/or a lack of understanding of how
insurance products work
• A feeling that “insurance products are not for people like me”
This challenge requires the development of an insurance solution that better suits the
needs of the low-income target market.
Challenge #4: Creating a competitive edge for SME insurance
The problem: Current insurance offerings provide insufficient value to SME customers.
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) (excluding micro-enterprises) are a sector that
has high potential for insurance provision, yet they are generally underserved by the
industry. Conversations with Egyptian insurers have illustrated that, in their experience,
SMEs do understand the value of insurance products; however, they do not feel that
insurance products sufficiently meet their needs. The most common issues raised include:
5 Insure Egypt (2016), “Egypt Insurance Market 2016” (Available at: insureegypt.com)
6 Ohno (2018), “Preliminary demand survey for product development of microinsurance in Egypt”, Japan International
Cooperation Agency (JICA) (Available at: http://www.fra.gov.eg/jtags/efsa_ar/pdf/Microinsurance-Demand-Study.pdf)
• The need to purchase a large number of individual insurance products for different
risks, rather than having access to single comprehensive insurance products
• The fact that engaging with insurance providers (including purchasing, paying premiums
and laying claims) is generally onerous and carries a high administrative burden
• The lack of suitable group products for SME employees
From the perspective of the insurer, cost-effective distribution and servicing of the products
are challenging.
This challenge requires a solution that provides SMEs with sufficient value and that
makes for cost-effective distribution. This solution should allow for the reduction of
the administrative burden for both the insurance provider and the SME customers.
4. Hackathon overview
Competition outline
• The hackathon was a four day, bring-your-own-device event.
• Meals, workspaces, internet connectivity, snacks and drinks were provided.
• Extensive networks of mentors and insurance industry experts were invited to contribute.
• A two-day training on insurance for SMEs was organised for incumbent insurers
alongside the training for participating insurtechs.
Contributing partners
• GIZ Egypt
• FRA Egypt
• Insurance Federation of Egypt
• AUC Venture Lab
• Rainmaking
• insight2impact
Competition overview
1. The open call for applications was shared in October 2019, and Insur;Hack received
over 200 applications from designers, coders, innovators in fintech, entrepreneurs and
established start-ups.
2. The final pool of participants (consisting of teams, existing start-ups and individuals)
was selected and invited to attend the Insur;Hack hackathon from 28 November to
1 December 2019, held at the AUC.
3. A pre-competition information session was hosted at Rainmaking the evening before
the competition kicked off, providing an overview of the competition and the challenge
framework. The organisers answered questions from the audience and set expectations
for participants. Representatives from more than 15 teams attended.
4. Day 1:
• Twenty-four (24) teams attended the opening day, consisting of keynote
presentations, information sessions, fireside chats, and product development
workshops.
• Day 1 ended with each team presenting their value propositions to the panel of
filtration judges from Rainmaking, AUC, GIZ and insight2impact (Assessment 1).
5. Day 2:
• Twenty-one (21) teams were invited to continue to Day 2, consisting of product
development workshops, mentor engagement sessions, and hacking time. For the
mentor engagements, a panel of mentors from the insurance industry, the innovation
and tech ecosystem and the development sector was available. Each team indicated
a ranking of their preferred mentors to speak to, based on specific questions they
had around their solution. Subsequently, a mentorship mixer was scheduled, with
teams having 10 minutes with each mentor to discuss a specific problem. A total of
89 mentoring sessions took place, with 13 mentors in total.
• Day 2 ended with each team presenting their solution demo to the panel of filtration
judges (Assessment 2).
6. Day 3:
• Twelve (12) teams were invited to continue to Day 3, which focused on preparing
the remaining teams to pitch their solutions to the panel of judges on Demo Day.
• A roundtable was organised by AUC Venture Labs, which hosted the FRA and
stakeholder representatives from incumbent insurers, insurtechs and
entrepreneurship supporters. The roundtable produced a frank discussion in which
industry actors raised their regulatory challenges and the FRA made certain
commitments to allow for more innovation in the sector. The roundtable succeeded
in generating a common understanding of the challenges in the industry and brought
incumbents and innovators closer together for effective innovation. This also allowed
participating insurtechs to incorporate insights into their final pitches to increase
their relevance for industry.
• Day 3 ended with each team rehearsing their pitches.
7. Day 4 (Demo Day):
• Twelve (12) teams were invited to showcase their solutions to the panel of judges
and an audience of interested stakeholders at the Westin Cairo Golf Resort & Spa,
Katameya Dunes. The audience consisted of representatives from the insurance
industry, the entrepreneurship support community, technology start-ups, regulators
and journalists.
• Each team was given five minutes to pitch their solution, followed by three minutes
for questions from the judges.
• Each solution was judged on four criteria:
i. Problem statement (accuracy of interpretation)
ii. Solution potential (potential of the solution to impact the financially underserved)
iii. Market opportunity (potential size and appropriateness of solution)
iv. Team composition (backgrounds and diversity)
Demo day judges
• Alaa El-Zoheiry (Chairman – Insurance Federation of Egypt, Managing Director – GIG
Insurance)
• Dr Ayman Ismail (Founding Director – AUC Venture Lab and AUC Angels)
• Noheir Khairy (Head of SME Insurance – PAFSME – GIZ)
• Hisham Ramadan (Insurance Senior Advisor – FRA)
Mentors
• Hadil AbdelKader (Head of Emerging Customers and Public Affairs – AXA Egypt)
• Khaled Arafat (Head of Operations – Sarwa Insurance Company)
• Azza Dagher (Vice President Casualty, Property and Financial – AIG Egypt)
• Mohamed El Mahdy (Director – Startupbootcamp FinTech Cairo)
• Ahmed El Sherif (Managing Director – Rainmaking Innovation Egypt)
Awards
• First place: EGP45,000 and German insurtech study tour (Hood)
• Second place: EGP36,000 (MerQ)
• Third place: EGP29,000 (Amanleek)
• All: Fast-tracked placement into Startupbootcamp and AUC Venture Lab accelerators
Insur;Hack Programme
• See annexure
5. Participant outline
The 24 teams comprised 85 participants, with an average of four members per team. Of
the 24 teams, 19 entered the competition as a pre-existing team (of which nine represent
established start-ups), with the remaining five teams comprising 11 individuals grouped on
Day 1, according to preference and relevant skills.
Team name Challenge
selected
Number of
members
Entered as
team (Y/N)
Existing
company (Y/N)
Competition
progression
1 * Hood #1 3 Yes Yes Demo Day
2 Mazboot #1 2 Yes Yes Demo Day
3 InsureAPI #4 1 No No Demo Day
4 Finsure #2 1 No No Day 1
5 ElZatona #3 2 Yes Yes Demo Day
6 Disruptive
mindsets #3 4 Yes No Day 2
7 Medmisr #1 2 Yes Yes Day 1
8 Savvy #3 4 Yes No Day 1
9 Insurme #3 3 No No Day 2
10 *** Amanleek #4 5 Yes Yes Demo Day
11 Assure #2 5 No No Day 2
12 Clickmare
Healthcare #4 6 Yes Yes Demo Day
13 be3mhsolak #3 4 Yes No Demo Day
14 1000 Salama #2 3 Yes Yes Demo Day
15 CoolZ3ro #1 5 Yes No Demo Day
16 Insta insure #1 6 Yes No Demo Day
17 StackNet #3 4 Yes Yes Day 2
18 The future
actuaries #3 1 Yes No Day 2
19 GetSafe #1 6 Yes No Day 2
20 ** MerQ #2 4 Yes Yes Demo Day
21 Bringy Digital
Ventures #3 1 No No Demo Day
22 Amadeus #1 5 Yes No Day 2
23 iLink #3 3 Yes No Day 2
24 TruTeam #3 5 Yes No Day 2
85 Yes-19; No-5 Yes-9; No-10
* = first place; ** = second place; *** = third place
Table 1: Insur;Hack team details
Most of the teams had some experience with innovation competitions of a similar nature
(19 teams – 79%); 12 had competed in a hackathon (50%), 12 had been part of an
incubator (50%), nine had innovation competition experience of some form (38%), nine had
attended a bootcamp (38%), and eight had been part of an accelerator programme (33%).
In contrast, five teams had no prior experience with the aforementioned activities (21%).
Figure 1 shows this breakdown of experience levels.
Figure 1: Innovation competition experience
Figure 2 shows the distribution of challenges represented on Demo Day (Day 3) compared
to those selected by the Insur;Hack teams on Day 1 – with each team permitted to select
one challenge and allowed to change their focus throughout the competition. The most
commonly selected challenge was No. 3 (10 teams), followed by No. 1 (seven teams), No. 2
(four teams) and lastly No. 4 (three teams). The distribution on Day 1 ensured a minimum of
two solutions per insurance sector challenge were presented on demo day.
Figure 2: Distribution of insurance sector challenges selected
50%
50%
38%
38%
33%
21%
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Hackathon
Incubator
Bootcamp
Innovation competition
Accelerator
None
Number of teams
7
4
10
3
4
2
3
3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
No. 1 Data
analysis tool
No. 2
Insurance
agents
No. 3 Low-
income
segment
No. 4 SME
insurance
Number of teams
DEMO DAY (DAY 3)
DAY 1
6. Solution details
This section provides an overview of the different solutions that the participants developed
during the Insur;Hack.
With reference to the insurance value chain (Box 3), most of the solutions presented on the
demo day targeted the sales process. This focus builds on the FRA’s commitment in recent
years to encourage increasing insurance sales online. The solutions targeting sales focused
mostly on increasing transparency for customers, through digital comparison platforms that
assist with understanding and choosing the right products. The second-most-common value
chain step focused on was that of servicing and risk management processes, primarily
by using new types of data to encourage less risky behaviour among customers and to
enable insurers to monitor their risk exposure. Specifically, sensor data on driving
behaviour and health data are being used here. This aligns with 2019 research that
indicates the most common types of insurance that innovations are being designed for are
vehicle and health8. Three solutions focused on improving the first step of the value chain:
product development, by connecting insurers with new and valuable data sources through
centralised platforms. Two solutions targeted claims management through automation.
As seen in Figure 3, none of the Insur;Hack solutions attempted to alleviate challenges
related to premium collection.
See the Demo Day lookbook9 for further descriptions of the solutions that were pitched.
7 Hunter et al (2018), “Inclusive insurance enhanced through the use of client data”, insight2impact facility (Available at
https://i2ifacility.org/insights/publications)
8 Esser et al (2019), “Insurtech for development: Emerging market trends. An update”, Cenfri. (Available at:
https://cenfri.org/databases/insurtech-tracker/)
9 https://cenfri.org/wp-content/uploads/InsurHack-lookbook.pdf
Box 3: The insurance value chain
The insurance value chain7 groups all activities undertaken by insurance providers in
serving their customers. This value chain is a closed loop, as all steps ideally inform the
product development phase.
Figure 3: Insur;Hack solutions targeted the insurance value chain (12 solutions presented on Demo Day – solutions may target more than one process)
First place: Hood10
Challenge selected: No. 1 – Developing data analysis and assessment
tools for insurance companies
Team members: Abdelrahman Saeed, Osama Gamal and Ramy Mohamed
Hood uses alternative data to improve risk assessment and management for vehicle
insurance by – according to their slogan – “reading your car’s mind”. Using smart car
sensors, Hood provides immediate value to both consumers and insurers. Consumers
benefit from a plug-and-play device that immediately gives them salient information about
their car – such as updates on engine health and required maintenance or fuel
consumption – allowing them to take better care of their vehicle. The sensors also provide
insights and recommendations about driving behaviour, encouraging customers to cultivate
safer driving habits. All of this data assists insurers with assessing and monitoring their
customers’ risk levels. Moving forward, Hood aims to enable tailored premiums and
insurance plans based on the data amassed.
Second place: MerQ11, 12
Challenge selected: No. 2 – Transforming the insurance agent
Team members: Waleed Ghalwash, Ahmed Asem, Nermeen Soliman and Shrouq Henedek
MerQ designs chatbots to help customers choose and understand financial products –
without leaving their preferred messaging platform. MerQ’s first chatbot, Sally, focuses on
credit cards and communicates with close to 20,000 people via Facebook Messenger, and
recently launched Nancy assists customers with choosing between various types of bank
accounts. During the Insur;Hack, MerQ focused on Nelly, their chatbot for insurance
products. Focusing specifically on teaching its bots Egyptian slang (through both voice and
10 https://hoodeg.com
11 https://merq.ai
12 https://www.linkedin.com/company/merq
3
5 5
1
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Product
development
Sales Premium collection Servicing and risk
management
Claims
management
Nu
mb
er
of te
am
s
text messages), MerQ has found that the convenience and comfort of these engagements
make its chatbots a more successful source of lead-generation for the providers it partners
with than their traditional channels.
Third place: Amanleek13
Challenge selected: No. 4 – Creating a competitive edge for SMEs through
insurance
Team members: Mohab Nady, Mohamed Mansour, Mervat Alanany, Ehab El Sokary and
Amr Nabil
Noting that the Egyptian insurance industry suffers from low levels of consumer trust,
Amanleek, an online insurance broker, set out to restore that trust by increasing
transparency. Through an online comparison portal, consumers can browse different
quotes and investigate differences in deductibles and additional benefits. In addition to this
comparison portal, Amanleek aims to make educational articles available, further
empowering customers to make the right insurance decisions, and the team is available for
additional questions and support. The overarching aim of the platform is to restore trust in
the insurance industry by making products easier to understand – as well as through
Amanleek’s fee structure, which is based on referral fees from insurance companies, rather
than administration fees charged to customers.
13 https://www.amanleek.com
Box 4: What contributed to the winners’ success?
Day 1
(24)
Demo Day
(12)
Winners
(3)
Joined the Insur;Hack as a team 19 10 3
Previous experience with innovation programmes 19 10 3
Team represents an existing startup/company 9 7 3
Previous experience in developing financial products 6 4 3
All of the above 5 4 3
Considering various characteristics of the Insur;Hack participants, we can conclude the following
about factors that contribute to success in the competition:
1. Joining as a team contributes to the likelihood of success, and it is a common feature.
2. As a team, having previous experience with innovation programmes and/or competitions helps,
and it is a common feature.
3. As a team, being an existing company contributes to success, and it is a less common
occurrence.
4. As a team, having prior experience in designing financial products specifically (as opposed to
other tech solutions) is important – and it is relatively rare.
The winning combination of all four factors is particularly rare, and a trait shared by the top three
teams.
7. Key learning outcomes
Based on survey data collected from the Insur;Hack participants, this section describes the
key learning outcomes were acknowledged.
7.1 Overall objectives
The Insur;Hack set out to (i) provide a platform that promotes collaboration, (ii) provide
capacity-building and mentorship, (iii) catalyse the design of innovative and tech-enabled
solutions that target the key challenges faced by the insurance sector in Egypt, and
(iv) showcase emerging innovations to key industry stakeholders.
It is clear from the participants’ responses to the post-event survey that the competition was
successful in achieving its objectives (see Box 4), with the competition overall being rated
4.2 out of 5 (Figure 4).
Figure 4: How useful was the Insur;Hack in achieving its objectives? (Source: Insur;Hack Egypt Participant Feedback Survey [15/24 team respondents])
Q: What was the most beneficial part of the Insur;Hack?
“The insurance mentor mixer” – Assure
“Financial inclusion insights” – MedMisr
“Understanding the insurance market needs” – Mazboot
“Mentoring and Rainmaking sessions” – MerQ
“Direct mentoring sessions” – Insta insure
“Networking and engaging with the insurance community and similarly minded people
with an interest in insurtech” – CoolZ3ro
7.2 Skills development and mentorship
Participants found the skills development and mentorship opportunities to be highly
beneficial (Figure 5). By engaging with the mentors and insurance sector experts in
attendance, the exposure the participants received assisted them in designing solutions as
a team and developing their own digital skills and expertise.
On average, the Insur;Hack participants rated the skills development and mentorship
opportunities as 4.1 out of 5.
Figure 5: How useful was the Insur;Hack in providing skills development and mentorship? (Source: Insur;Hack Egypt Participant Feedback Survey [15/24 team respondents])
It is noteworthy that the teams benefited from the wide range of topics and skills covered in
this training. As is clear from their answers in the survey, the most valuable training
components for teams ranged from learnings about the (inclusive) insurance market and
how they could best serve this market to very practical skills required by a tech start-up,
such as crafting a value proposition or pitching. This holistic approach taken by the
Insur;Hack is a significant part of the valuable impact achieved by the event.
7.3 Partnership and collaboration
The participants found value in the partnership and collaboration opportunities provided
during the hackathon (Figure 6). Through the various collaborative touchpoints between the
industry and participants (such as lunches and breaks, the mentorship carousel, and a
roundtable with representatives from innovators, incumbents and regulators), the event
Q: Please describe three key learnings from the Insur;Hack
“The importance of financial inclusion, the urgency for ICT-enabled insurance solutions,
solution viability” – MedMisr
“Becoming a lean start-up, the value proposition, user product journey” – InsurMe
“Presentation skills, time management, project planning” – MerQ
“Introduction to insurtech, market opportunities, regulatory concerns” – Insta insure
“Idea validation, business and entrepreneurial skills, value proposition” – ClickMare
fostered engagements that enabled the development of innovative digital solutions that are
specifically relevant to the key challenges faced by the insurance sector in Egypt. These
engagements benefited the teams during their participation in the competition, and the
networks established during the competition are expected to continue to benefit the teams
as they develop products/services in the future and take them to market.
The Insur;Hack participants rated the partnership and collaboration opportunities as an
average of 4.3 out of 5.
Figure 6: How useful was the Insur;Hack in providing partnership and collaboration opportunities? (Source: Insur;Hack Egypt Participant Feedback Survey [15/24 team respondents])
7.4 Event feedback
The participants highlighted a few areas where future events could be improved:
• Insurance is a broad issue. It would be better to break down the insurance value chain
and focus on individual components. Each component has its own policy, procedures
and technical requirements. This would help to meet the needs of the sector and allow
the start-ups learn about specific requirements of each insurance component.
• More clarity of the programme flow at the beginning of the event (pre-competition
information session) and stricter timekeeping to ensure the agenda is followed.
• The insurance mentor mixer on Day 2 was the most helpful session, but the room was
very crowded and noisy, which could be improved on. Participants also noted that it
would be beneficial to schedule longer and more of such engagements throughout the
competition, rather than only on the one day.
Q: Please describe three meaningful connections you made during the Hackathon
“Representatives from three insurance companies” – MerQ and Insta insure
“The FRA, the Rainmaking team, and an insurance company” – Amanleek
“The GIZ team, insurance companies, team Hood” – 1000 Salama
“Insurance companies and AUC Venture Lab” – ClickMare
• It would be beneficial to have a member from the insurance sector to attend the pitch
rehearsals on Day 3.
• Have the event twice per year.
7.5 Conclusion
Overall, the Insur;Hack is deemed to have been successful at achieving its various
objectives. The event was designed to target divergent audiences, ranging from individuals
who were interested in the concept of insurtech, through existing (insur)tech companies
that have products in the market, to even incumbent insurers. The survey responses
mentioned above provide a glimpse of the varied benefits that participants get from the
event – ranging from technical, start-up-related to partnerships and mentorship. This holistic
approach is argued to have contributed to the success of the Insur;Hack in upskilling a
sizable number of innovators in matters relevant to the industry and in developing products
of relevance, with a meaningful outlook of making it to market.
8. Annexure
Robert Jones
Research & Innovation Analyst
Renée Hunter
Associate
How to find us
Get involved. Contact us.
+27 21 913 9510
i2ifacility.org
